(Featured Photo by Ivor Dwitomo)
Melbourne had the first piece of cake of ‘People with Cameras’ on September 1st. Us Sydney folks had no choice but to watch from afar. We knew PWC was coming to Sydney in November, but a lot of us were jealous to see the buzz on Facebook. The retailers brought in lenses, drones, tripods, filters and the sheer numbers of attendees out with their cameras on a rainy afternoon. Rumours spread vastly that Chuck Norris (Joe Jongue) himself led the Fuji X Aus photowalk. It would explain why there were so many amazing photos taken. If you have not seen the video Ian Tan made, have a quick look:
[vimeo 290886481 w=640 h=360] People With Cameras 2018 Melbourne from Ian & Rena Media on Vimeo.
Two months went by and here we are, days after the phenomenal PWC event in Sydney. It was meant to rain and surprisingly (not really) the train lines were affected on this day too. The event officially began at 10:00am, however there were around 200 attendees who arrived earlier, anticipating Leigh Diprose of Fujifilm Australia to commence the event. He, along with Andrew from Nisi Filters, gave out limited gift bags. It was given to those who could do 10 push ups, who knew what brand produced the first digital camera, who didn’t have hair, who was the shortest and tallest and lastly who was the most beautiful attendee present. Mark Saltissi was not there, so it had to be given to someone else. Nevertheless, it set the tone of the event that it was going to be an exciting day. Well, except for Andrew Hoang’s expression while Leigh was speaking in the last image below. We love you Andrew.
The First Photo Challenge:
I exclaimed, “The challenge is to take a portrait of someone with a nature element in the photograph!” The crowd roared in excitement as it was the best photography challenge photography history. Okay, maybe I am over exaggerating, however it appeared that many enjoyed the challenge! Here are a few photographs from the first challenge:
After the first challenge, many congregated at the top level of the Botanic Gardens Cafe. Stalls of multiple retailers such as Fujifilm, Nisifilters, MagMod, and Wandrd to name a few. In addition to this, there was a table filled with finger foods and unlimited coffee! For anyone who organised any event, we can attest that there is something powerful about having food available at an event. It truely does bring people together and adds to the atmosphere of true community. I believe this was the vision of Fujifilm Australia who organised this. A free event, free advice, free food for the value of photographers everywhere. It is all about bringing a community together.
Photo by Paula Bloom
To wrap up the day, Nisi Filters brought a container full of filters to assist with the second challenge which is, ‘ Natural Beauty.’ It was an awesome challenge because beauty truly is subjective for each and every person. Many used the filters to capture the motions of the water nearby. I’d recommend checking the hashtag to see some samples on Instagram #pwc18sydney
I attended last year and I can say without a doubt that ‘People with Cameras’ is growing from strength to strength. If you are still not convinced from everything that I mentioned already, check out this video made by a member of Fuji X Aus, JP Magpayo, sharing the highlights of the event:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPwV5rB4QJE&w=560&h=315]
